Comments on: Thorium and the Liquid-Fluoride Reactor: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

By: Doug Robinson

Doug Robinson — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:14:14 +0000

Where can I get some “Up with LFTRs” T-shirts?

By: Utah Citizens | How Thorium makes Fossill Fuels Obsolete

Utah Citizens | How Thorium makes Fossill Fuels Obsolete — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 01:06:12 +0000

[...] source [...]

By: Albert Rogers

Albert Rogers — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:19:22 +0000

The really neat thing about the REAL cures for global warming, like either kind of breeder reactor (i.e. I’m including the IFR) is that they DO NOT “create jobs”.

Technology, if good, doesn’t take huge manpower to maintain it. So if we solve these problems, we must also solve the problem of redistributing incomes and leisure fairly, and curtail the horrific power of the Employer to ruin the Employee, whether by malice or the stupidity of people like Lehman Bros.

By: Albert Rogers

Albert Rogers — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:12:09 +0000

I agree with Michael Burns.
I was born in Scotland, and chose to become an American.
I was raised a Presbyterian, and am now an atheist.
But it boggles my mind that so many of my now fellow-Americans imagine that Christianity is compatible with outrageous wealth and the destruction of the environment, a.k.a. the rest of God’s Creation!
But I disagree with Robert Carroll if he thinks that the first priority should be shutting down the nuclear industry.
We ‘d be far better shutting down the entire fossil carbon industry, AND those damned ugly wind turbines, with nuclear power, preferably owned by the people’s Government, like the BPA, the TVA, the BBC, and until the EU forced them to privatize, France’s EDF .

By: Melvin

Melvin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:46:24 +0000

Radioactive Xenon produced in nuclear reactions decays into Caesium, not a stable isotope of Xenon. I supposed you could add an additional “blanket” layer to the reactor to expose the Xenon to neutron bombardment, that would produce stable Xenon, though it would also take neutrons away from the reaction (the whole point of removing the Xenon from the salt in the first place). Neodymium harvesting seems fairly sound (most produced isotopes are stable to begin with), as does the use of any radioactive byproducts, but not Xenon.

Other than that, very nice article. This technology is of great interest to me, and I would very much like to see it utilized.

By: Eric Robinson

Eric Robinson — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:35:49 +0000

I wonder if a LFTR coupled with hydrogen production on a site near an old coal mine (perhaps replacing a coal fired plant) could be used to power a Bergius process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergius_process

Yes there would be CO2 emissions when the fuel was burned but a significant fraction of the fuel value of the resulting liquid fuel would come from the reactor.

What if a similar process could be developed using bio-mass as a carbon source?

Also,I know that oilsands in Alberta (where I live) are not particularly popular right now, especially with all the natural gas that needs to be burned for process steam and upgrading. Again, LFTRs coupled with hydrogen production could provide the hydrogen needed to turn heavy and/or partially oxygenated hydrocarbons into valuable liquid fuels. Not to mention the immense process heat needed for de-sulphuring/de-oxygenation, coking, cracking, etc.

Again a fraction of the heating value of that fuel would be carbon neutral. So it would be of similar carbon-reducing value as current efforts to blend ethanol into gasoline or bio diesel into diesel.

By: Edvinas Kalisevicius

Edvinas Kalisevicius — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 10:44:50 +0000

Hello,
Im in St.Pauls high school and i wanted to ask if i can use this image from your site.
http://energyfromthorium.com/essay3rs/

By: Steven Brown

Steven Brown — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:29:34 +0000

I think it is our responsibility to educate the public about the benefits and safety of LFTR technology. It can be key to energy independence for America. This would be a tremendous benefit to the economy, as the trade deficit, exacerbated by the highs cost of imported oil, could transform to a trade surplus, as the weak dollar increases exports. We need to educate the public and to make elected officials aware that a solution to economic malaise is LFTR technology.

P.S. This is my third attempt to get past the CAPTCHA filter.

By: Brajesh Kumar

Brajesh Kumar — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 05:07:17 +0000

Congratulations for bringing out wonderful concept where whole fuel cycle is made so compact, reducing not only seccondary waste generation levels significantly but long half life fp wastes as well.Eliminating prolong cooling and containment requirements seems good however, I am not sure hazards related with Graphite moderator, need to maintain homogeniety of liquid fuel in the solvent all the time to avoid unwarrented criticality hazards and U232 generated hard gamma shielding requirements can be dealt with.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 05:41:33 +0000

LTFR don’t need moderators including graphite one- the reaction is essentially self controlling due to expansion of the salts. Graphite wouldn’t last very long in a fluorine environment as they reprocess the liquid salts using fluorine- carbon tetrafluoride is a gas under these conditions. Only Xe135 is a significant Neutron barrier and that’s not the common isotopes of naturally occurring xenon so its no good as a neutron barrier. There is a real deficiency of proposed materials information- only suggested is Hastelloy N, Haynes 242 and a few other Nickel-Molydenum alloys. There is a real shortage of material choices- including ceramics.